La Douleur Exquiste
by jokerant
Summary: Vash hates that he loves something he can't ever have.


_**"the heart-wrenching pain of desiring someone unattainable**__"_

_Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube._

_Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi diva Venus_.

.

'Vash Zwingli,' is scrawled in swirling, irritatingly perfect cursive scripture above a blank line that suggests someone's name should indeed be written there, 'you are politely invited - certainly not implored - to attend the celebratory wedding of Mrs. Erzsébet Héderváry and'

That is as much as Vash reads before he shreds the lavender-scented stationary to pieces in his certainly-not-trembling hands. The pieces of the thick crème-colored letter, covered in rich ink that recreated compositions and masterpieces, drifted to his feet and remained in curls and tatters around his boots.

He already knows what the rest of the invitation says; why should he torture himself more? 'Mr. Roderich Edelstein' finishes the announcement, matching the invitations of probably dozens of more people - Vash knows by now that he isn't anything relative to 'special' - that yet another alliance is upon the world in 1867.

Austria is marrying Hungary - somehow, he isn't very surprised.

.

Vash can hand it to his old friend - he even winces, since he is standing alone in his house on a small hill in the shadow of Mt. Jungfrau, as he calls Roderich his 'friend' - that marrying a powerful girl like Hungary was smart. Erzsébet is a powerful girl; she always has been. She has challenged her Ottoman captor head-on, and knocked the smug leader of the Prussian army straight off his high saddled horse, and even sent Vash himself running a few times. This alliance is certainly going to grant Roderich his dreams..

Just like Arthur's half-baked vows to remain through the war. (But what can you expect from an Englishman anyway?)

Just like all of Francis' riches and glory. (Before the blood-stained revolution ended in guillotine blades falling; anti-royal riots and another marriage ended in bloodshed and signatures.)

Just like Antonio's promises, whispers of dreams of family and the world, _forever_, had floated off into the Spanish winds for nearly two hundred years before. (War was what a way to end a love - pity, because Vash had been there, and he'd watched his stupid backstabbing best friend Roderich cry as a bullet to the chest sent him falling backwards into mud - and he had felt that pain like it was his own.)

.

Vash went to a bar.

He rarely did - today, it seemed necessary.

.

As much as he hated to admit it, it seemed that great minds and not-so-great minds think alike. Gilbert was sitting far too close to him, the smell of something he didn't recognize overwhelming as it blocked out any other smell around them. Their shoulders were brushing. He skipped the politeness, muttering a warning for Prussia to back up over the rim of his whiskey glass.

They aren't in Switzerland, or Prussia - they are in Vienna, the twin capitol of the new Austro-Hungarian empire. At least the aristocratic prude kept the pubs open; it was half expected that Roderich would actually change, from sobbing about his dear dead student and pangermanism over a stein of some prissy, fruity drink.

Vash isn't dressed in the same casual suit - not suitable for a wedding, and that was probably what Prussia was aiming for anyway - as Gilbert, but he is wearing a collared shirt and tie, and he loosens the tie because it is suddenly way too warm in here and he is choking (and it doesn't remind him of the shade of Roderich's eyes).

"They look really happy together," Gilbert says.

"He always has, with her," Vash says back, swallowing another mouthful of whiskey and adoring the bitter burn as it slips down his esophagus and settles broodingly in his stomach. He already knows, it's going to taste like acid once it comes back up later, but it's almost worth it - he can't talk to Gilbert without being drunk. "I'm guessing she has too, when she was with him."

Gilbert says something, angrily, but Vash omits it and barks an order for the bartender to pour him another round of whiskey. He slaps his flattened hand against the bar until the man places the filled-to-the-brim glass at his place, where he picks it up, unbothered by the alcohol that splashed onto the counter, and tosses it back like a thirsty man's glass of water. "You love her," he slurs, not a man who can hold his liquor, and he's already had several glasses before Gilbert's arrival.

"You love _him_," Gilbert replies snappishly over his own stein.

Vash only snorts.

Later, he muses, he can suppose that - liquor like water - these years won't pass easily sober.

.

Roderich walks on a higher plane than Vash and Gilbert and his wife combined; treads clean, perfectly marked every damn meter (so he doesn't get lost), trails lain with twinkling gold and sparkling silver in each and every brick, with that raised-chin, proud stride of his. He thinks himself _so_ _great_, just because he's wealthier than ever now and his land is widespread between the old empire's two largest countries. Roderich thinks that because his coat tails are floating and there's another ring on his third left hand finger and he's a great power again that he's so _wonderful_.

Roderich probably thinks he's _everything_.

Vash can laugh at this - he's choosing not to, however - because he thinks so too.

.

Vash can deny it all he wants to; between her soft, precise accent, her tidiness and clever façade of helplessness (it isn't 'stupid' when it's her), and her history, and _everything_ about her, Liechtenstein reminds him of Roderich so much it pains him. He carried Lili on his back through the downpour of that one night, hands tight on the back of her knees and barking gentle orders to tighten her grip on him or she's going to fall into another puddle again. He thinks back, hearing his own sharp words as he reprimands Roderich for being such a sissy and making him come fight for him, his own bumps and bruises smarting.

When he helps her tend to her economic bruises and her cough from sharply changing from part of a dual monarch empire to a principality, he treats her as gently as he treated Austria back in the day. But unlike now, he will always treat her kindly and gently (well, as much so as he can, anyway).

He glares at Roderich whenever he gets a second of attention, because he hates that despicable, beautiful frop _so_ _much_ he can't sleep at night.

.

Roderich remains untouchable to this very day. The calendar is in the 2000s now, a May month to be exact. Roderich has imitated - flattered - him, even though his neutrality and Switzerland's are very, very different; he has surged forth, joining that stupid European Union; they interact all the time now, because Austria benefits from Swiss tourism and Switzerland likes a lot of Austrian things. But their relationship is business. That idiot Gilbert - the one that isn't supposed to exist anymore, yeah that one; the same one he talked with so many years ago, in that bar about a man he'd beaten up a year prior marrying a woman he'd loved since childhood - is the only one who can touch Roderich now. (And that doesn't necessarily mean just being the only one to break his temper.)

Vash watches, now joined by Lili - and three adorable goats that are as loyal as his little sister and like Austria never was - at the foot of his Alps, as Roderich remains too far out of reach for him to catch, always in some more-than-business business that he can't intrude on.

_Unattainable_, is the word in his head.

Roderich is _unattainable_, therefore the word, therefore also - _always_ - in his head.

.


End file.
